When fourteen-year-old Maggie and her friends hang out with some older guys they meet on Facebook, a crush unravels into a twisted trance fueled by Four Lokos and naive infatuation. “Monkey Bars,” directed by Jacqueline Xerri, is a coming-of-age drama about a group of teenagers that perfectly cap...

Matteo reckons with the disappearance of his older brother, Damascus, after his car turns up unexplainably abandoned. A poetic mood piece directed by J.P. Emodi, “Jason Richardson” follows the young man through a quietly tumultuous period as he grapples with memories of his brother and begins to ...

Stuck indefinitely in her childhood home surrounded by her younger cousins, an aspiring musician fixates on making sure everyone knows she’s the ‘weird’ one. “The Weird Cousin,” directed by Megan Patsel, is a playful comedy that was conceived and filmed in quarantine, a showcase for the writing a...

Two roommates struggle to decide which Black Lives Matter sign they should purchase to show their support for the BLM movement. Chester Vincent Toye directs “I’m SO Sorry,” which satirically tackles prevalent forms of white guilt and virtue signaling. Caught up in a moment of racial reckoning, a ...

After an acquaintance gets signed to a major label, two townies try to cook up their own path to success. “Sharon 66,” directed by Jordan Tetewsky and Joshua Pikovsky, is a quietly funny, weirdo slice-of-life portrait of life in a small town for two mid 20’s underachievers. Benjy wanders around S...

A young photographer explores his sexuality after a surprising romantic advance. “Self Portrait,” directed by by Gus Aronson, is a sensual experimental film which spotlights and inverts the concept of the photographer’s gaze. During a portrait session, a photographer and model experience a lustfu...

A collection of vignettes involving people in everyday moments who are tethered to otherworldly beings. “Others,” directed by Grace Rex, is a study in mood and hidden meaning, a strange, experimental portrait mostly free of dialogue but thick in atmosphere. In one segment, a woman named Dianne wh...

An awkward young man gets a Spanish lesson in the home of a tutor but learns more about the teacher than the language. It's film about communication, connection, and small talk morphing into big talk. It’s funny, warm and efficient. After the Spanish lesson is over, idle chit-chat turns personal ...

Chicago video journalist Will P.T. is ready for his big break but it’s slow coming and self-doubt is starting to creep in. “Prime Time,” directed by Gus Gavino, perfectly captures the feeling of striving for something you don’t have complete control over. It’s a subtly touching film about aspirat...

Two roommates, Annie and Dan, try to concoct a collab that will be their one-way ticket to fame. Written and directed by Annie Brennen, “Fauxmous: A New, Very Good Web Series,” is a rollicking extravaganza of comedy wordplay and effusive self-praise presented in six short eps. Brennen co-stars al...

Travis scratches off lottery tickets everyday out of routine, never thinking about how scary it'd be to actually win. “Scratch Offs,” directed by Andrew Lewis, is an intriguing piece of slow cinema, notable for its deadpan depiction of a young man who appears to have just won a million dollars an...

Two Midwesterners take a panoramic tour of the gas stations, strip malls and fast food restaurants of their lives. An experimental documentary that turns ordinary, prepackaged American suburbia into a surreal haze, “Going to the Store,” directed by Andrew Lewis, approaches the familiar with such ...

Dark and intense, Catherine Fordham’s short film “KAYA” delves into the desperation of a young woman in search of her sister. At a truck stop motel in Socorro, New Mexico, Kaya searches for her teenage sister, Luna, who was taken by a sex trafficker named Buck. Instead, she discovers another youn...

Told from the perspective of a cat, this melancholic 16mm short begins as a portrait of a relationship between a young Japanese woman and an American man. An air of poetry and wistfulness pervades but there’s heaviness under the surface, and as the peaceful images morph into darker ones, we are f...

While stuck at home during lockdown, a Russian woman living in L.A. ponders how to stay busy and convince herself everything’s okay. “Stay At Home Movie,” made by Sasha Lebedeva — she writes, shoots, edits, color grades, and stars — is a simple but stylish self-portrait of boredom and restlessnes...

A faithfully recreated 1970s cigarettes advertisement unspools into a surreal satire on melodramatic marketing. “Ralph Styles Ultra,” by director Nic fforde, is an exquisitely-realized mockup complete with period-perfect performances, music, art design, costuming, and hair and make up. A debonair...

An archival biography film about the early career of Deborah Harry told entirely through press interviews where she endures superficial, tedious, and demeaning questions from journalists. Meghan Fredrich directs and edits “Deborah Harry Does Not Like Interviews,” a video essay collage of sorts, w...

Etta returns home from Vegas with a pile of cash and needs to explain to her boyfriend how she got it. Jessica Garrison writes and directs “DIME,” a provocative chamber drama circling a host of relationship hot buttons - trust, jealousy, sex, power. The situation escalates bit by bit - Etta arriv...

On a visit home to Idaho, Matt documents family dynamics and recalls scattered memories from childhood. “Here We Have Idaho,” made by and starring Matt Barats, is a witty self-portrait about small-scale resentments and feeling undervalued amongst loved ones. He leaves his “high-octane, balls-to-t...

Two stoner BFFs engage in an unusual routine to accrue the capital needed to sustain their lifestyle. “Salesmanship,” directed by and starring Brooke Bundy and Helen Rogers, is a stylized snapshot of being broke and aimless. Minimally plotted but energetic, it’s built with flashy musical sequence...

Playing a version of himself, director Whitmer (aka Whit) Thomas drifts through L.A., meeting up with a series of friends and alienating them in various ways. Both comedic and revealing, "Fast and Loose" is a casual hang but an incisive one. As a self-reflection of a particular sort of friend gro...

Mitra and Whit walk around Brooklyn discussing their dream TV show. “Shot on Film” is a loose, self-aware comedy tackling insider cliches about improvised dialogue, gender representation, and shooting on film. Directed by and starring Whitmer Thomas playing a problematic version of himself, an un...

A little girl receives a letter from Santa Claus in this short and sweet holiday film from director Eric Paschal Johnson, co-director of “Observatory Blues”. Over a series of richly melancholic 16mm compositions of a young girl lugging a Christmas tree through fields and forests, Santa narrates a...

A not-quite-pornographic vignette from 1991. Sexy attorneys come together to discuss a horrific bus accident. Directed by Laura Moss. Written by Brendan J. O’Brien and Laura Moss.